SF Cyclotouring

4/14/2006

Carlos and I celebrated the summer-like weather (75 F) with a short Conzelman loop. We met at the Strauss statue at 3pm and crossed the GGB, fighting lots of tourists. We crossed over Sausalito Lateral and started climbing up Conzelman. I was glad for my fenders because there was lots of run-off on the road's surface. We got to the top, snapped a few pencam photos, and decended down the other side, passing the other old WWII bunkers and the missle base. Continued on through the tunnel, then down Sausalito Lateral, turning back before Sausalito onto Ft. Baker Road to head towards the Discovery Museum. Carlos started having problems with his bike, and we stopped to check, discovering that his cassette was loose on the freehub. Taking things apart revealed that the lockring actually had snapped the threads off of the freehub body. Carlos removed a cassette spacer and reassembled, hoping that the lockring would screw in further and find a better purchase. That lasted for a bout the next 1/2 mile, unfortunately. However, he pedaled gingerly and we made it back across the bridge w/o any more problems.

On Monday we had a respite from the rain, so I rode my fixed-gear bike up to the top of Conzelman Road. I think I left just before 4pm -- by the time I got to the GGB they'd opened the west-side bike path so I didn't have to fight with the tourists/peds. I've never ridden a fixed gear up to the top of Conzelman, and nearly bailed a couple of times. I think my average pedal-cadence was around 20 rpms. Just as I was about to give up, two roadies silently slipped past me, giving me a carrot to chase, so I persisted onwards/upwards; of course right around the next bend there was the top, so I'm glad I didn't give up.

I turned around at the top after snapping some photos, and thought about trying some "underbiking" by taking the trail down to Bunker Road, but it's closed to bikes due to all the rain we've been having. So I pedalled down to Bunker Road, through the tunnel, then up Sausalito Lateral back to the GGB and on home. I think I did about 20 miles (I don't have a computer on this bike).

4/06/2006

Someone on the iBOB list recently said something like "the more bikes you have, the exponentially-larger the chance is that none of themwill be working at any given time." How true that is! Lately I'vebeen finding myself stressing over the sheer *number* of bikes I own-- deciding which one to ride, then maintaining all of them just takesmore energy than it should. I used to enjoy wrenching on bikes, nowit's just a chore -- I'd rather spend the time simply riding them thanholed up in the basement with greasy fingers. I guess that's a signof getting older -- time becomes more precious or something. Anways...